by Erin Sullivan

Dramatic horoscope changes can occur when we relocate,
but there are also subtle ones. For instance, if you
move only a short distance and yet that move has altered
your house system such that it shifts your Sun or your
Moon into another house, that is important. Normally,
you won't notice it the minute you arrive, because it
takes some time and much energy to make a major move,
so that you are unlikely suddenly to feel, "Oh
right, my Sun has now just moved from the eighth house
to the seventh house, therefore relationships are going
to be really much better for me, and I'm not going to
be dwelling always on the mysteries of life but on friendship,
relationship and lighter hearted things." That
would be mad.

However, you might find that if you moved there, lived
there for a couple of years - a Mars return is about
the time it takes to take root in a place - that kind
of subtlety will manifest. You will still be the same
person and the Sun will have its same aspect, let's
say it squares Saturn, so you still are that same individual
with a strong challenge to the ego. You still will be
required to develop under stress and hard work, but
you may find that in partnerships and relationships
you are much less interior and more involved - that
you are not as isolated (eighth house Sun) and more
capable of working with another.

The further away from your natal place that you move,
the more dramatic will be the way you play yourself
out. I think that if we are going to consider relocation
as a choice, rather than as happenstance, then it is
good to be practical about the move, taking into consideration
all the ramifications, and also doing the relocation
charts. In other words, there are many reasons for moving.
The basic two reasons are you must move, or you want
to move. Most people move because they are aesthetically
and/or pragmatically attracted to a place. Work is better,
education, cultural attraction, aesthetics are more
appealing, it is better for the family, and so on.

That is why I think Astro*Carto*Graphy comes in as an important tool,
because if one is emigrating from one part of the world
to another, then it is important to see the overall
"tone" of the area. People who feel an urgent
desire to move to other countries for reasons other
than just the kind of buildings that are there and the
art work, are usually being called by their soul - there
is some soulful attachment to the place, some deep work
that needs to be done in that place. A*C*G might give
you the big picture, but the relocation chart will give
you the local picture.

The global picture is Astro*Carto*Graphy, the local
picture is the actual setting of the horoscope for the
little tiny village/town or major city where you want
to live, say within a 600 mile proximity of the big
line that has attracted you. You can use both. Because
Astro*Carto*Graphy doesn't show you the houses, but
the power energy, you will want to look at the houses.[*]

For instance, if we are considering a choice of a couple
of places because we love both, and a major A*C*G line
runs midway between them, or is in the vicinity of both,
then setting the relocation chart will fine tune the
places. Assuming that both are equally placed in our
hearts as places to go, and the choice can be made rationally
through mapping, then you will find using these methods
helpful to you and your clients.

Subtle changes:
same person, different perspective
Let's say you want to move to Sydney or Melbourne,
Australia. They are far enough apart that it would make
a subtle difference in your relocation chart, but initially,
A*C*G might have drawn you to that part of the world
and it would be better for you for various reasons,
maybe a Venus/DSC line crossing a Moon/IC line is happening
just off the coastline, mid-way between the two very
different cities. So, the area is lovely to contemplate,
but what are the details?

So if you set a relocation chart for Sydney and then
one for Melbourne or Adelaide, then you would find subtle
differences between the way your natal self, your "hardwired"
self resonates with the area, and how the area receives
your energy.

One of the cities you chose might dramatize the idea
of the challenge in career with the Sun in the tenth
house, for example, whereas if you shifted it further
over to the west, so that the solar emphasis was then
placed in the ninth, it may well put you into a space
of more being open for learning, study - of being an
enthusiastic student rather than a driven, career-oriented
person. So the change can be quite subtle. If I were
considering relocating, I would consider the nature
of myself, my circumstances, the ethos of the place
itself, and my planets and then try and find the best
place for my planets' best behaviour.

Where are the planets going to be much happier? Where
are they going to be more productive? Where would the
individuation process be better facilitated especially
if we are wanting to foster an underdeveloped or shadowed
side of our self. If we are thinking of moving, then
we would want to base it on aesthetic, practical and
astrological pictures. So, for example, I think some
planets are more comfortable in quiet places, rather
than angular. I would consider very carefully locating
to a place that has hard statements on angles, unless
you plan to exemplify that configuration in a socially
or politically useful way.

By that I mean, weighty generational configurations
like a Saturn/Uranus conjunction, Uranus/Pluto conjunction,
a Saturn/Pluto conjunction, a Saturn/Neptune conjunction
or the T-cross that occurs with Jupiter, Uranus and
Saturn in Libra that presented in the nineteen-fifties,
and so on. These are important configurations denoting
a personal connection to a collective intent or theme,
and if they are too much for an individual to bear in
an angular - conscious - fashion, then outstanding events
will occur.

Choices:
Heaven on earth
Recall Christopher's amazing story, in the previous
seminar (A*C*G section of this book) , with the Saturn/Uranus
conjunction in his tenth house, becoming angular in
Africa, and rather than being a voice of the collective,
became a victim of the external collective politics.
Adventures of this level of intensity do not suit all
of us. (Figures 8 and 8a in the previous seminar on
Astro*Carto*Graphy.)

When you are considering relocation, the best place
to start is at home, thinking of your own self. How
would you rather live out your celestial array? Where
would you rather see the most challenging aspects enacted
within the context of your life? Would you rather have
them engaged in the ninth house where it can become
an argument with the gods or a philosophical pursuit,
or would you rather have it enacted in your fifth house
where it might be interacting with your children or
a lover or taking speculative risks that could be very
dangerous?

So, these are some of the most important considerations
to keep in mind. There are individuals who have shifted
a hard and ineradicable, inexorable natal aspect from,
say, the fourth house, where they are dwelling constantly
on matters of the family and transforming the family
and working all these aspects out in the microcosm of
the family collective, yet could use them in ways which
would transform society.
One of my clients who appears as a case in "The
Astrology of Family Dynamics" , who had a "wasting
disease" commonly called Chronic Fatigue Syndrome,
for almost seven years, the immunodeficiency illness,
was born with the Uranus/Pluto conjunction in the Ascendant,
opposite Saturn on the Descendant and forming a T-cross
to her Mars/Venus conjunction in Sagittarius in the
fourth house. So she was continuously processing her
family dilemma through her psyche and her body until
finally it became somatic - she fell ill and she has
worked through all that.

The good news is that at the end, as I was writing
the story up for the book, I had to write a last minute
add-in that she had got married, has relocated to another
part of the world and she has really changed that drama
into another, more enjoyable drama. She now is in place
whereupon she has a Uranus/Pluto/Midheaven; Saturn/IC
with the Mars/Venus/Ascendant and it's a much more healthy
challenge, living and working in an exciting place where
she is offered diplomatic jobs, mediation work in the
"war zone" and so on. She shifted her T-cross
around to different angular prominence! So you can shift
the focus of yourself, by moving yourself, but for Fiona,
the family dynamic still exists, her work still exists,
her T-cross is still there, but it is to a better cause,
because she is using herself in another way.

[*] Why does relocation take into account
our houses whereas Astro*Carto*Graphy doesn't?
Horoscopy and A*C*G mapping are different systems,
showing different views, depicting different astronomical
pictures. A*C*G focusses only on angularity of
planets, and accounts for both latitude of the
planets and their zodiacal longitude, therefore,
we have a more accurate visualization of the planets
in the sky, not just in the ecliptic.

The houses of the horoscope are based on an earth
view of the sky and the ecliptic (zodiac), whereas
the angular lines of the A*C*G map are based on
the sky's view - a planetary view - of the earth.
The houses are there, in the locations specific,
but they are not the significance, the point,
of the A*C*G map. Philosophically, it is based
on power in angularity. In other words, if a planet
is on an angle, it has more power than it does
when it is in an intermediary house.Back

Taken
from
Erin Sullivan:Where in the World? - Astro*Carto*Graphy and Relocation
Charts.
CPA Press, London.

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